Up 24% Already This Year, Is It Too Late to Buy This Dividend Stock?

Less-than-truckload carrier Old Dominion Freight Line (NASDAQ: ODFL) has had a strong start to 2026. As of this writing, shares have surged about 24% higher this year.

That is a big move for a company that just reported lower revenue and lower earnings. Its fourth-quarter revenue fell 5.7% year over year to $1.3 billion, and earnings per share declined 11.4% to $1.09.

If you are looking at the chart and wondering whether you missed it, a better question might be: What has to go right from here for this price to make sense?

Image source: Getty Images.

Results: pricing held up, volumes did not

Old Dominion's fourth-quarter results highlighted a business that remains challenged by soft freight volumes. Case in point, the company's less-than-truckload (LTL) tons per day fell 10.7% during the quarter.

With this said, the company's service quality remains an advantage -- and is key to its ability to maintain pricing power even as volume trends are moving in the wrong direction. The company said it provided 99% on-time service in the quarter and had a cargo claims ratio of just 0.1%. And LTL revenue per hundredweight, excluding fuel surcharges, increased 4.9% (a hundredweight is 100 pounds, so this is a basic price-per-pound indicator).

But the volume decline did exactly what you would expect to a business with a meaningful fixed-cost base. Old Dominion's operating ratio -- operating expenses as a percent of revenue (lower is better) -- increased 80 basis points to 76.7% in the fourth quarter. This, of course, explains why the company's earnings per share is falling faster than revenue.

"While we continue to operate efficiently and diligently managed our discretionary spending during the quarter," explained Old Dominion chief financial officer Adam Satterfield in the company's most recent earnings call, "the decrease in our revenue had a deleveraging effect on many of our operating expenses."

The same dynamic showed up in the full-year numbers. For 2025, revenue fell 5.5% year over year to $5.5 billion, and earnings per share declined 11.7% to $4.84.

None of this is to say Old Dominion Freight Line is executing poorly. Its challenges with freight volumes are likely primarily macroeconomically driven, and the next leg higher in earnings -- whenever it finally materializes -- is likely to require higher freight volumes, not just continued pricing discipline.

Valuation: a recovery is already priced in

At about $195 per share, Old Dominion trades at about 40 times earnings. While this price-to-earnings ratio could come down quickly when freight volumes finally pick up, as the company's operating leverage kicks in, the stock's recent rise means the pressure is on.

Put simply, a valuation like this needs earnings to reaccelerate.

But a positive outcome like this can't be ruled out. If freight demand turns and shipment volumes recover, the operating leverage can work in the other direction, pulling the operating ratio back down and pushing earnings higher. And the company has already shown it can hold yield while protecting service.

In the meantime, the company is returning capital to shareholders. In addition to its dividend, which yields 0.6% at the stock's current price, the company continues to spend aggressively on share repurchases. In 2025, it spent $730 million on share repurchases -- a substantial sum for a $41 billion company.

In addition, it is reacting to the soft environment by cutting capital expenditures. In its fourth-quarter update, the company forecast capital expenditures of $265 million in 2026, down from $415 million in 2025.

The risk, of course, is that demand stays sluggish longer than investors expect, and the fixed-cost leverage keeps working against Old Dominion.

Ultimately, I'd opt to stay on the sidelines at this price. Old Dominion is a high-quality operator in a cyclical business, and after a 24% year-to-date gain, the stock price is already leaning into a better freight backdrop than the company just reported. In other words, it's pricing in a recovery before it happens. This could work out fine if a recovery does ensue. But if it doesn't, the stock could take a hit.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Old Dominion Freight Line. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.